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The highly sensitive trial of four staff of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto opened Monday in a case that has strained ties with Canberra and stoked concerns about doing business in China.

Australian national Stern Hu, who heads Rio Tinto's office in Shanghai, and three Chinese employees are being tried on bribery and trade secrets charges.

Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese said in Beijing that the trial was of major concern to the mining company, one of the principal suppliers of the natural resources China needs to sustain its economic boom.

"This issue is obviously of great concern to us, as it would be for any company operating in China," Albanese said in a speech at an economic forum in the Chinese capital.

"I can only say we respectfully await the outcome of the Chinese legal process."

A crowd of about 50 journalists gathered outside the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court but only a few reporters, who appeared to be from state-run domestic media, were allowed to enter.

Court spokeswoman Wang Haiwen confirmed to AFP that the trial had begun, adding that it was "open to the public". She gave no further details.

Canberra has called for transparency in the three-day trial, but hearings on the industrial espionage charges will be closed, adding to questions over whether the men will get a fair hearing in the politically charged case.

Australian Consul-General Tom Connor declined to comment to reporters as he headed into the courthouse but said he would speak to the media later.

Lawyers for the Chinese defendants also made no comment as they entered the courthouse.

The four defendants were arrested last July during contentious iron-ore contract negotiations which later collapsed, and after Rio snubbed a near 20-billion-dollar cash injection from state-run Chinese mining firm Chinalco.

The trial came after Rio Tinto's announcement Friday that it had signed a 1.35-billion-dollar deal with Chinalco to develop a huge iron-ore mine in Guinea, adding new impetus to rocketing Sino-Australian trade.

But the trial is widely being seen as a test of whether China is willing to honour commitments to foreign investors. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told China the world will be watching "very closely".

"The Australian government will be monitoring the trial very carefully," Rudd told reporters on Monday. "China has a different legal system to Australia, China has a different legal system to the rest of the world."

Australia has said consular officials will attend trial sessions on the bribe-taking charges and it has asked China to reconsider the closure of the trade secrets hearings.

Beijing has insisted the case will be handled by the book and it will "fully guarantee" the rights of the defendants, who include Chinese nationals Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang and Liu Caikui.

"It will be regarded as a litmus test of the status of the young Chinese legal system. Transparency matters," Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told AFP.

As the trial got under way, the American Chamber of Commerce in China released a survey of 203 member companies that showed 38 percent felt unwelcome in the Chinese market, up from 26 percent late last year.

Inconsistent regulatory interpretation and judicial treatment topped the list of concerns for American businesses, the survey said.

Respondents also cited what they view as a push by Beijing to squeeze foreign technology companies out of the multi-billion-dollar market for selling computers and office equipment to government departments.

AFP